NeoFirst Progress Tracker:

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Essentially, jman (And others. :p ) have expressed their wishes that a new DemoQuest be created which would display all, if not most of the newest features in ZC. The quest will be called "NeoFirst.qst" and it will be similar to Demo quest in design. (Though not in layout.) It will use as many features as possible, have three dungeons, (One standard hunt for keys, one "gimmick" dungeon, and a third and final "Master dungeon.") And will be between moderate to hard on the difficulty scale.

Therefore, what we need to do will take place in the following steps, in pretty much this order.

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1. Discuss what this quest will need to accomplish and exhibit.
2. Figure out if we're doing a: 1) NewFirst replacement. 2) DemoQuest Sequel. 3) Whole new quest. (Click)

• Find a useful tileset as well as tiles which will facilitate that need.]
  
  • 2x2 Link.
  • ALTTP Style Movement complete with frames for the 2x2 Link.
  • Tiles for a Custom boss which will be discussed later.
• ]Once we have the tileset, we'll need to plan it out. An overworld, complete with at least three themes (Winter area, Spring Area, Swamp, etc. Can be anything, really. Anything at all.) will be necessary. (8x8 minimum, 32x16 maximum, though something closer to the minimum would be nice. :p )

Actually, concerning the tileset, I was sort of thinking that we should plan out all three dungeons first, and our overworld should follow from their placements.

• Three dungeons will be made. One will be a dungeon of moderate difficulty. Something along the lines of any given level 6 (Out of 8.) from any random quest. It will be your average key-quest dungeon, maybe one or two gimmicks, but nothing major. It will exhibit the abilities of the Treasure Chests, and the Lockblock Combos, and Tiered Combos. (Which were technically already in, but it's still nice to use them.) They'll be using the Reset combo, of course.

• A second dungeon will be somewhat more difficult. The Gimmick will be its primary focus here. It can be any of the stereotypical:
  
  • Forest Temple - Plant vines to ascend, burn trees to continue, play music to make things happen.
  • Water Temple - Raise and lower water levels to go around the temple.
  • Shadow Temple - A Temple filled with illusionary walls, items, sprites, and things to make your skin crawl. Undead optional.
  • Fire Temple - Watch where you step. Possibly an Elevation-based dungeon.
  • YOUR IDEA HERE

• A Final Dungeon which will feature Ganondorf (Or just Ganon, who knows.) as the final boss. It will be a penultimate dungeon, which will require all of your mental processes to maneuver around, as it will make exceptional use of just about every new feature which can be used toward the dungeon. It'll definitely either be something non-conventional, such as a corrupted Bastion of Angels, ... or the extreme stereotype of the "Final Dungeon Of ur head asplode x 1,000,000." Something like that. Demo Quest was pretty difficult, but not unbeatable, ... and it impressed hundreds, if not thousands over the years. NeoFirst should do the same, only moreso.

• We'll need to assemble a team of developers to help create the many aspects of this quest. We'll need:
  
  1. Builders - People to actually construct the quest within ZQuest.
  2. Planners - Creative people to map out the overworlds and the dungeons so they won't be randomly drawn when the time comes to create them. DFW would be wonderful for this, I think, but that's only one of many whos name pops up.
  3. Graphics Artists - (*b*, C-Dawg, Radien, Petoe, Myself, etc.) Tile/Pixel artists who are willing to design the custom graphics for the quest. From what I believe, Gashin (*b*) has been nice enough to lend us his own tileset for NeoFirst. Now we just need the Custom Boss. We'll also need tiles for whatever we plan out for the future, but that comes later.
  4. Midis - We'll need midis for the quest. The thing is, this comes much later for when we have just about 100% of the quest's themes done. A good mood makes or break a quest, and the music makes or breaks the mood.
• Quest Testers - This will come much, much later, obviously. We'll need a few people to test for bugs, and to make sure that it's at least playable. We'll need two types of testers:
  
  • Bug Testers - Very diligent people who look in every crack and crevice looking for the occasional blank undercombo, or continue bug, etc.
  • Difficulty Testers - A few brave souls who will go through the quest without any assistance or cheat codes whatsoever, who will see if the quest is playable by the intermediate players out there, and at least able to be admired from a relative distance by the TLOZ Newbies out there.

• When the quest is done, we'll need a little bit of space to upload the files to. We'll also need a few tantalizing screenshots. Maybe even someone to write up a brief FAQ for the quest could help a little with that.

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So, what are everyones' thoughts? Remember, this quest is meant to be two things:

• A Demo Quest for the new generation of ZC. Short but sweet, and very detailed.
• An exhibition as to most, if not all, of ZC's new features.

3/18/06 - I am not hiring anyone to work on the project just yet. As it stands, NeoFirst is still in the planning phases, and no real "work" may be done until it's thoroughly planned out. We need to find a good tileset which we can work with. Initially, I'm thinking about using the DoR Tileset (By Radien.) or the PTUX Tileset (By Mr. Z.) I'm also waiting for Gashin (*b*) to show off more screens from his tilesets. He has quite a few nice things in development. If any of you guys have any suggestions as to what set we should be building this in, please feel free to come forward (In the appropriate thread!) and say it. Also remember that whatever graphics (Tileset.) are used, will undoubtedly be duplicated in many future quests, as this quest will become a standard amongst users new to ZC.

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This post by IDK:

This will act as the checklist of features we should be displaying.

Here's a checklist of sorts of things that, imo, must be in the quest: (in no particular order)

--Treasure Chests
--Appearing Treasure Chests
--Triggering things in order & other uses for tiered secrets
--A Custom Boss
--Cutscenes
--Title or Intro Screen
--Sprites that you can talk to on the overworld
--Multi-warps (if you're using the latest beta)
--A timed warp (for whatever purpose, like with the cutscene or custom boss, or a minigame)
--All items that were not in the original LoZ (hammer, hookshot, din's fire, superbombs, lens, flippers, etc.)
--True Arrows,Quivers, & Arrow Ammunition
--Bomb Bags & Bomb Ammunition
--Slashing (by default or learning it later in the quest, either way)
--A lot of Push Block Puzzles with 'Block Trigger' flags
--Weather or environmental effects, such as Rain, Snow, Fog, Heat, Underwater, Poison, Wind, or any combination thereof.
--Combo Cycling for things like spikes that go up & down, or retractable walls that go back up x seconds after being triggered.
--All enemies since the original should be included as well, and used carefully too (in other words, don't just pack together herds of death knights to show them off & make an area riduculously hard)
--At least 1 Link-Tile Mod (other than for the shields)
--Magic System (demonstrates how to set up the magic meter, shows off magic jars, use a magic enhance room type, etc.)
--Direct Warps
--Use of the Reset Room Combo
--Lock Blocks & Boss Lock Blocks
--Freeform Dungeons & Off-center Doors
--Use of Room Carry Over Data
--Inherent Flags
--Inherent Flags combined with Cycling Combos
--Use of Initial Data (perhaps have the player start with an item you usually don't begin with or have more or fewer heart containers when beginning
--Save Combos
--Heart Container Pieces
--The latest Subscreen Type
--Autowarp Combos
--Multiple Undercombos
--Over & Under Bridges
--Bushes & Flowers
--Layers & Autolayers
--Eyeball Combos
--Enemy Shadows
--Water & Shallow Water
--Dmap Titles & Intro String
--Linked Strings

Pretty much anything you can think of that was not in the original game should be in this quest--it'd be great for veterans & newbies alike. It'd be nice to see everything new that you can do in one quest that you couldn't do years ago and it help teach different techniques.

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NeoFirst Progress:
4/3/06

Currently: Creating Combo Page Optimizations of the DoR Tileset by Radien.

Shoelace has been assigned the task of designing Level 1 based on plans made by LinkTheMaster. NOTE: He must wait until he has recieved the DoR Tileset Combo Page Optimizations I will make.

The Overworld is being planned out on paper, and will be scanned and exhibited for comments.

L2 is also being planned on a nice pixelmap.

I've got more progress. ... ... (Obviously.)

Rather than simply making a list of what I've done and what I haven't, I can simply show you.

NeoFirst Alpha 1 - 4/14/06. Use ZC 2.11 Beta 10 b.

What's this alpha contain? When I start it, all I get is a garbage combo scrolling acros the screen. And looking at it in ZQ only shows a few screens done.

Very nice combo arrangement though.

(Edited out. Never mind, entirely my fault. Wasn't paying attention.)

Wierd.
(he he he)

I think Link's animation is screwed up as well. I tried using the magic wand (through cheats), and he faced the wrong way both up and down.

Hey BH4, you want me to fix Link's animation problem and clear out the strings and music (since some DoR stuff is loaded at the moment), then send the file to you to be reuploaded?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jman2050

What's this alpha contain? When I start it, all I get is a garbage combo scrolling acros the screen. And looking at it in ZQ only shows a few screens done.

Very nice combo arrangement though.

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@ Latter Portion Of Post: ... Well, that's what I've been doing. :p I don't want to start anything until I get that down well. Concerning the dungeons, I think that we can add whatever we need to add for the more "unique" areas later, but until then, we're supposed to be assembling something that newbies and the more advanced people can build in just as easily. Once we have THAT part down, we can work on the individual quest itself.

I mean, I think it's a matter of priority. Nobody really has a 2.11 tileset yet. There is also no real 2.11 "tutorial" quest. There are, however, several 2.11 quests being worked on. (Possibly even as I type this. :blah: ) So that's the order of construction that I'm thinking of.

So look at the combo and tiles pages. I seriously need to organize them, but I figure we can do that part together. If anyone wants to take a crack at it now, I can go back to the planning phase (Away from physical construction.) while whoever one person it is wants to. Just work faster than I am. :blah: You probably have more physical time to do it than I do anyway. @ @.'

jman: So, obviously, there will be "garbage" screens. I'm testing things out. I'm also assembling many combo aliases. Granted, there aren't many up there yet, but that's only because I've been focusing on the combo pages, AND, that combo aliases can't be copied or moved like a regular combo page. ;) Heheh.


Sir_Johnamus, quit spamming up the progress thread, thanks?

Rakki, like I said earlier, this is an "As Is" copy. I'm mostly working on the combo pages, but the link tiles can be done later. We're still deciding on a 2x2 link, but I'm really sort of thinking it should be a 1x1 link, but with spillover into the nearby tiles for the support of the pixels that would've been cut off had it only been 1x1 link. Know what I mean? I should mention that in the link thread though.

Besides; one thing at a time. :blah:

Okay! We've got ... a few screens!

NeoFirst Pre-Alpha 2 - 5/13/06

This Pre-Alpha contains a display of one phase of the combo layout, as well as a few unfinished screens. I'm still in the combo-page setup phase, as I want to get that done before anything else. After all, it's the foundation of the quest. :shrug:

Not bad. Although I did notice that some of the animations aren't set right. Some need to be pushed back a couple of tiles.

But, on the whole, a good beginning.

Uhh...
Everyone says it is good and all, but my screen still stays messed up:
http://images.cjb.net/33bf1.bmp
and
http://images.cjb.net/2835d.bmp
When I open it in ZQ, the same screen appears, and the combo pages are all loaded with garbage combos.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sir_Johnamus

Uhh...
Everyone says it is good and all, but my screen still stays messed up:
http://images.cjb.net/33bf1.bmp
and
http://images.cjb.net/2835d.bmp
When I open it in ZQ, the same screen appears, and the combo pages are all loaded with garbage combos.

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That's what happened to me when I tried to open this quest on my Celeron D machine after working on it on my PII 300 MHZ 256 Mb Ram machine for so long. It still works just fine on my PII machine, only when I open it in the same build on the other machine, it looks like that.

You're using Beta 10b, right? It needs 10b to work.

The screenshots are showing what happens when the combos get jumbled. Since the combos you see on the screen are referring to one of the combos that got jumbled in the combo page, naturally, all combos tied to that jumbled combo will get messed up too. That's why it looks like that. It doesn't look like that at all on my PII. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Britannianhero4

Okay! We've got ... a few screens!

NeoFirst Pre-Alpha 2 - 5/13/06

This Pre-Alpha contains a display of one phase of the combo layout, as well as a few unfinished screens. I'm still in the combo-page setup phase, as I want to get that done before anything else. After all, it's the foundation of the quest. :shrug:

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It loaded fine for me, but I didn't see a "few" screens, I saw 1 completed screen, a lttp style house screen.
Personally I think you're taking way too much time on combo/tile layout and not focusing on the purpose of the quest, and that's to demonstrate ZC and it's new features, and give new builders an example to go by when learning how to use the editor.

Quote:

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It loaded fine for me, but I didn't see a "few" screens, I saw 1 completed screen, a lttp style house screen. Personally I think you're taking way too much time on combo/tile layout and not focusing on the purpose of the quest, and that's to demonstrate ZC and it's new features, and give new builders an example to go by when learning how to use the editor.

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Rest assured, that's what's going on in my head as well. The Garbage Combo bug has really been messing with it though. I mean, sheesh, I'm on this thing every single Friday afternoon/Saturday for how many months now, and this is all I have to show for it? ... ... I can't say I'm "tired of it," though I am, ... it's just something that needs to be plowed through until a more stable version can be released.

I'm thinking of exporting this graphics pack and importing it into a previous version to try to avoid this bug. Think it'll work in 2.10?

I'm not getting any garbage combos in b10b and I've done a bunch of combo/tile work.
Before, in whatever version it was... it seemed to be caused by making tiles and then moving them to another tile position or page in the tile pages, so perhaps doing your editing in another qst file and then just loading them in the final version will cure your problem.
Another "trick" seemed to be to place a combo near the end on the combo pages, this seemed to not allow any garbage combos to be added from that point back to the beginning of the combo pages, since I had done that, and am still using that quest now, maybe that's why I haven't had even one garbage combo since I upgraded to the 10b.

I've only had an issue once, and it was with one of my flower combos, in which the last frame flipped and showed a transparent tile across it, even though it was fine in the combo page, but I had to replace the combo. This happened just once for me...

Um, okay, it's time for another small Status Update.

5/21/06

Shoelace Has The Quest Now

Indeed, at the moment, Shoelace now has NeoFirstb.qst and is constructing Level 1 (The Forest Temple.) with what I was able to save of the combo pages.

While he works, I'll be drawing, importing and recoloring various graphics for use in the set, whether we need them or not. I figure they'd be nice to have. They're mostly things useful in questbuilding, such as interface graphics, heart indicators, magic meters, etc etc.

It's been a little while. :p Thought It'd add to the progress so far. So, right now, Shoelace has completed Level 1, and now it's up to me to design the boss for Level 1.

Read up on Shoelace's immense success here.

Okay Josh. When you have completed what you have done for the Level boss and the overworld, who has been assigned to the creation of L2? Or hasn't that been decided yet?

1) This is one potential layout of L1's Boss Screen. I don't have any boss tiles at all yet, though I'm imagining that I'll be using quite a few of those already-present waving tentacle tiles. -quite- a few of them. ;) I might also be interested in those Super Metroid Vine Miniboss wall borders to form a vine tanglement between the three areas you see in there.

2) Rakki is supposed to be looking into L2, planning it, etc ... Haven't heard much from him lately. That's okay though. I'm really working hard on the overworld. I have my map, so I'm working on constructing it.

BTW: Whoever wants to see what I've done with it since Shoelace finished: See the following paragraph. Again, it's for 10b.

7-17-06's version. Some bugfixes. Mostly working in the Mysterious Forest now.

Four weeks. Buh. :sweat: Here's another, smaller update. It's not much, really. I'm starting to use Freeform combos on the overworld, and constructing more and more of it. I still have a lot to go. I also need to get some idea of what I'm going to put on the entire eastern third of the map. @ @.'

NeoFirst - Beta 10b.

(I kinda feel guilty for double/triple posting, but whatever. We have bigger fish to fry here.)

Okay. This is a progress report based on my work on the combo pages. I'm attempting to ensure that the tileset itself is at least presentable for future public releases.

As the majority of you know, (Hopefully more. Hell, hopefully even that expected majority. O.o' ) NeoFirst will be both an example quest and a tileset. The tileset is based off of Radien's sublime DoR tileset. The DoR tileset has little to nothing to offer 2.11's later builds, so NeoFirst's tileset addresses those issues and takes the already formidable DoR tileset by the hand and guides it into 2.11 and beyond.

I have a lot planned for it. I plan to allow a lot of its contents to be applied to layers, yet this will be entirely optional, as you will have many pre-prepared templates for such things. I plan to port all floor borders to the 2.11 style, though there won't be many of them. Users can create their own when they learn how.

Dungeon Carving mode will also be used, although I don't plan on using the ultra-fine mode. An example can be seen in the "Normal House" area of NeoFirst. You'll see that I've set something up, but you'll also see "X"'s near the end, indicating where I've omitted from the Dungeon Carving design. No, I really don't plan to include those unless I have the tiles to do so. It's a huge hassle to make. If you want to contribute towards NeoFirst, I'd be more than happy to accept and credit anything you submit, particularly towards this cause. Once they're in there, they're in forever.

I plan on creating quite a few Combo Aliases for people to use. This is the moment where I really wish there was a way to move Aliases around, like the combo page or something. One day, maybe. :rolleyes: Now, at the moment, my work in the still buggy ZC 2.11 Beta 11 has scrambled everyone single Combo Alias I've established. While the combos on the game world haven't shifted, (Thank goodness.) all of the combo aliases are now completely jumbled, and resemble nothing less than total garbage. I'll have to fix every single one of them, or just delete them outright and start anew.

(Yes folks, this is where I would make my e-Voice very very loud and say jman's name three times, watch him appear in a puff of smoke, bop him on the head or prod him with some sort of stick, and ... ... apologize for such rude behavior and plead with him to craft such a Combo Alias Editor similar to the combo page.)

So now, I've got quite a bit more room in the combo page to work with. I've added a lot more features, warps, chests, doodads, and rearranged quite a bit as well, now that I actually can. It's the Tiles page I'm a bit worried about. THAT, I'll have to move page by page to insert whatever blank space I have to.

Quote:

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This is the moment where I really wish there was a way to move Aliases around, like the combo page or something. One day, maybe.

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Hmm ... I won't promise anything yet but there just might be. I'll try.

I don't like how the save feature works. I was testing out the level again and I died, and I had to start from my last save. That makes me want to stop playing the game really. I like the save points, but it should be where if you die, you keep playing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shoelace

I don't like how the save feature works. I was testing out the level again and I died, and I had to start from my last save. That makes me want to stop playing the game really. I like the save points, but it should be where if you die, you keep playing.

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I disagree. The reason save points are used over the Quit->Save feature is because you're supposed to clear the areas between the save points without dying.

I just save at every Save Point that I find. :shrug: Besides, NeoFirst is supposed to be an exhibition / demo of 2.11's new features. If the save system wasn't enabled, what would be the point? :shrug:

Shoelace, what did you mean by "I like the save points, but it should be where if you die, you keep playing." Like, .. you'd just pop right up again wherever you died? ._o'

I meant how I made the demo. When you die, it says to continue and retry. No save. That is what the save points are for, to save. However, it just sucks when you are in the level and then you die and you have to start from the last save point. That's just me I guess.

What's Happening Now:

Submit Your Custom Subscreens

Warping Collaborative Explanation / Methodology
(How we're dealing with the warp system.)

Discussion: Custom Midis Or Not?

New Poll - Choose L2's Design based on our three entrants.

This weekend, I'll be putting together the graphics for L2's dungeon, and laying out L3's rubble as well. (Hopefully.)

Hey Josh. Can you give an update to the NeoFirst file. Seems every one I find doesn't exist.

Well, Here is the latest post I just made, and Here is the latest uploaded version, I think. (Note, that that isn't it. Keep reading. You'll see why.)

However, just use that to look at. It's NOT the latest version that I'm building. It's just the latest version that has been uploaded. (Download <-- ) I'll upload the latest version when I finish jman's graphics, so we can all get the latest version when he's done.

In the meantime, start planning out Thief Caves. Make them pretty. Just start planning rooms and devious structures and such. The actual rooms will be given out to build later tonight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShadowTiger

In the meantime, start planning out Thief Caves. Make them pretty. Just start planning rooms and devious structures and such. The actual rooms will be given out to build later tonight.

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Shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to wait and see whom else is doing these as well so we don't all bump heads.

Cave Work has begun.

I just wanted to know how the 2nd level was going. It has been like 4 monthes since the 1st level was completed, and I made that quick so we can move staight to the 2nd level, and I haven't heard anything about it, just the design. So how is it going?

Caves are being assembled at the moment. _L_ has the master quest version, (And is viewing this thread right now, apparently. o.o' ) and can assemble all the pieces of the caves into his master version. Then we can work on getting L2 out into the public workshop.

Well, I know that there's still some tiles to be completed...

Yeah, it's like nobody can agree on what L2 will look like, visually. If you have an idea, then by all means, design for me a mockup of the actual images.